


Talk Less, Smile More

by quentinknockout



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 20:15:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6871918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quentinknockout/pseuds/quentinknockout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stannis Baratheon is running for local council, and his campaign manager Davos Seaworth has a hint or two on how to face the press. The local politics AU you didn't know you wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dubbledore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dubbledore/gifts).



> for the stavos crew, with all my love. xx

‘We’ve discussed that strategy already.’  
The coffee was lukewarm by now, but Stannis poured it anyway. It was too late, far too late, and now his campaign manager and his policy advisor were having one of their many disagreements.  
‘This is not the sort of electorate that welcomes door-knockers,’ Davos continued. ‘It’s difficult to convince new voters, hard to get decent volunteers who are willing to give up an entire day, look, we’ve been through all these points, Mel.’  
Mel sniffed. ‘Show me an elected mayor in the last ten years who hasn’t tried pounding the pavement.’  
‘Well, we’re having trouble locating enough swing voters as it is.’  
They were only twenty days into a 75 day campaign and Stannis was now wondering whether running for office was even a good idea at all. A safe seat, a family name that had political clout, of course he had anticipated some hard work, but not this much. Stannis had underestimated his opponent. Daenerys was fresh, young and looked good on camera. Stannis’s last press conference had gone over like a lead balloon. Voters seemed to like his policies, but not him. They were going to try again for the press tomorrow, and were on the subject of new tactics, but Mel had changed topic to canvassing.  
‘Look,’ Stannis finally found himself interrupting, ‘if I’m going to front the cameras tomorrow we need to discuss an approach. It’s almost midnight.’  
Mel raised her perfectly pencilled eyebrows.  
‘Well, maybe that’s my cue to nick off and get some beauty sleep.’ She patted Davos’s sleeve. ‘You’ll need your right hand man for that, Stannis. He reflects and reshapes.’  
Davos rolled his eyes, but there was a sparkle of mirth there.  
‘8am sharp.’ Mel folded her red coat over her arm. She inclined her head at Stannis. ‘I’ll do your makeup, if you like.’  
‘Heaven forbid.’  
She shut the door behind her, her heels clacking away down the hall.  
Davos swung round to face Stannis over the conference table. He pushed his shirtsleeves up, cuffs rolled to his elbows. It was a ‘let’s get down to business’ move, and coupled with his unbuttoned collar, was a move that made something hitch in Stannis’s chest, like someone had taken a torch to his insides. He wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the confidence.  
‘You seem tense.’  
‘Now?’ Stannis swallowed, blinked. The room was definitely warmer. Probably just because Mel had closed the door.  
‘No, I mean.. in front of the camera. I mean, there’s one direction I can give you.’  
‘What’s that?’  
‘Smile more.’  
Stannis stared.  
‘That’s it?’  
‘Smile more. You’ve got a.. I mean, you’ve got an underused asset there. A lovely smile.’ He chuckled.  
‘Lovely?’ Stannis repeated, and his eye fell on Davos’ bare forearms, flicking across to his throat. God, what was wrong with him?  
‘Go on, then.’  
Davos’s voice had changed. Not direct and professional, now it was low and rich. ‘Go for it, while we’re got time.’  
‘Time for –?‘ Stannis’s mind had gone somewhere else entirely, and he was feeling his face flush, and instead fixed his eyes on the paper Davos had passed him. ‘Oh. To practice.’  
‘What did you think I meant?’ Davos murmured. His eyes met Stannis’s. He wordlessly indicated the paper, the ghost of a smile on his face.  
Stannis cleared his throat.  
'Go on, then.'  
Twenty minutes later in an Uber home, Stannis replayed those words in his head. What did you think I meant? The honeyed tone of Davos’s voice. The silver of his eyes. Was Stannis reading into things? What on earth had come over him? God, it was enough to make him sweat under the collar.  
This was going to be a very, very long campaign.


	2. Leading The Polls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the local council campaign trail, Stannis Baratheon wishes his campaign manager's smile wouldn't stop distracting him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the crew, as always xx

Photo calls and press conferences were not Stannis’s forte. The sooner they were over, the better, and onto the more pressing matters at hand.   
Davos had said it would be a good look if Stannis came out swinging on the big community issues, and the new freeway proposed by the current MP was greatly unpopular. Davos and Mel had both suggested Stannis meet with a small selection of the local press near the planned route and tell them how he felt. Honesty, on the front foot straight away. The meeting was proposed for 8am. ‘I’ll be at your house with coffee at half past seven,’ Davos had texted the night before. ‘Bright and early.’   
Stannis had always been a morning person, which was fortunate in politics. But this particular morning was an icy grey, the kind where a steaming thermos of coffee was a gift from heaven.   
He just wished he wasn’t looking forward to his campaign manager’s smile more.   
They’d met only three months earlier, just before Stannis was thinking of launching his campaign for the local seat. Davos was a former navy officer, with a keen eye for community organisation. He was warm, kind, and good with people. Alongside the ambitious policy advisor Mel, Stannis thought he had a fairly compact team behind him for victory. A conservative winning margin, perhaps, but a victory nonetheless.   
That was what Stannis thought, anyway. Until a week or so ago, when he started getting hung up on Davos Seaworth’s smile.   
Stannis ate his breakfast carefully, tied his tie in the mirror. He’d barely finished knotting it when the knock came at the door.   
‘Morning. No need to look so stern.’   
Did he have to smile all the time, Stannis thought irritably, as he took the thermos from Davos’s outstretched hand. It was distracting. Besides, smiling too much wasn’t trustworthy in this kind of business. Was it?  
‘Remember what I said about smiling?’ Davos hopped in the driver’s seat.   
‘What?’ Stannis almost snapped, somehow afraid the other man had read his mind.   
‘Well, smiling would be a starter. Take questions, but not too many. It’ll be fine. I know you don’t like cameras.’  
‘You know a lot about me,’ Stannis mumbled, buckling his seatbelt.   
‘I’m good at reading.’ Davos chuckled, starting the car. ‘People, that is. Can’t read a book to save myself.’  
There was a pause.   
‘That was what we call a joke.’   
‘Ah yes, very good.’ Stannis sipped the coffee. It was piping hot, black, just as he liked it.   
When the car pulled up, there were no press milling about just yet.   
‘We’ll get the cameras to go here,’ Davos pointed at the weatherboard houses. ‘That’ll be a good shot because these are the ones they’ll tear down.’  
‘You know your stuff.’ Stannis finished the dregs.   
‘Like I said, a good reader.’   
And suddenly, Davos’s hands were at Stannis’s throat, adjusting the knot in his tie. He was so close, Stannis could smell his aftershave, see the bob of his adam’s apple, the scarred stumps on his hand where he’d had that accident on the frigate.   
‘Sorry, just fixing it.’ Davos patted the knot flat, and his fingertip grazed the skin closest to Stannis’s collar, who felt the touch like a sting. ‘You’ll be fine. Look, here they are now.’  
Two news vans that had just pulled up, cameramen and journos unloaded.   
The press conference itself seemed to go well, and Stannis slammed the proposed Kings Road, his heart thudding in his chest all the while, as Davos stood just in the corner of his line of vision, still smiling, damn him. The journalists had what they needed for the evening news, and they fidgeted with their recorders, played back the tapes, and clambered back into their vans.  
‘That was very good.’ Davos murmured, when the news vans had pulled away. ‘Steely.’   
‘You think?’ Stannis could almost feel himself blushing at the praise. This was beyond ridiculous.   
‘Absolutely. If you can handle every camera like that, we’ll be laughing.’   
‘Well, thanks for your help.’   
‘Come on, I’ll drop you home. Mel will come by at twelve to take you to the senior citizens centre. Meet and greet. That sort of thing.’   
‘You’ve certainly got the diary filled out properly.’   
‘It’s what they pay me for.’   
It was shameful, what Stannis did when he got home. But the memory of Davos’s fingertip touching his neck was so near, the scent of him so close, so fleeting, he had to take advantage while it lasted, and he spent a golden five minutes remembering it indeed, the hum of Davos’s breath, how his voice might sound a little closer in Stannis’s ear, his scarred hand finding better purchase on Stannis’s throat. Like a fucking teenager. It was so pathetic when it was over, but Stannis hadn’t been able to help himself. A stupid, lusty schoolboy crush.   
‘You seem pleased with yourself,’ Mel said coolly from the driver’s seat a few hours later, passing Stannis a sandwich. ‘Press conference go well?’  
‘Very well indeed.’   
‘Don’t get ahead. Still fifty campaigning days to go.’ She chided. ‘Agony.’   
Stannis bit his lip at the word. That was right. Fifty more days with Davos at his house every morning with perfectly made coffee and a kind smile.  
Agony. That was certainly one way to put it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the home strait of the election cycle and Stannis has had enough of a few things more than politics.

Speeches. Discussions. Policies. Planning. The days were starting to blur into each other. Mel coached and retooled and fixed his hair if Stannis needed to be before the camera. But Davos was the one really steering the ship. He knew Stannis needed a cup of coffee before he asked for it, reassured him when polls weren’t looking their way. He looked out for him, looked after him, and it really did seem like he cared. But most of all, he offered honesty.  
And honesty wasn’t easy to come by in politics.   
Stannis wished that’s where it could end. A professional admiration at the most. After all, Davos was invaluable as a right hand man. He was clever, had a quick laugh and a dry wit.   
How Stannis wished that was all it was. But instead he’d found himself caught off guard.   
After each day’s long schedule Stannis would go home and scold himself. For laughing at Davos’s jokes. For letting his gaze drift to Davos in the middle of speeches, finding relief in his warm eyes. When he was particularly tired, Stannis even thought of Davos’s rope-roughened, scarred hands, and what sort of gentle lines they could well trace.   
It was stupid, useless, and embarrassing. And at such a time too. There were ten days before the elections and the polling hadn’t looked too favourable for the Baratheon side.   
The arduous work was really getting to Stannis now. No matter how positive Davos was by his side, he couldn’t make small talk any more. It didn’t come naturally to him. It came so easily to Davos, kind and caring and…   
No.   
At this stage of the campaign, at the end of particularly hard days, Stannis had taken to coming home, pouring himself a whisky and phoning his daughter Shireen. Shireen could spin any bad day into sunlight. She was like Davos in that way, reflecting, reshaping, drawing out the optimism in bright, broad shapes. And Stannis hadn’t realised until recently how sorely he needed that.   
But this time, Shireen didn’t answer, and by the third ring Stannis remembered she was at a movie with a friend. Morose, he sat down and flicked on the tv. The BBC blared out with headlines of the day – another bad news cycle, more reports of misery from every corner of the world. He changed the channel. Same again but with a slightly more local slant.   
Stannis was just thinking of packing it in and ordering a pizza, and of course, pouring another whiskey, when there was a tap at the door.   
‘I know you’ve had enough of me today, but I also know you’ve got no food in the house.’   
Davos was standing on the stoop, that sunlit smile on his face. Tucked under one arm was a crockpot, still steaming as if right from the oven.   
‘It’s seafood paella. I made up the recipe. But I must’ve made a mix up somewhere, cos there’s enough to feed twenty.’  
Stannis realised, too late, that he was staring. He felt that uncomfortable rise of colour from his neck.   
‘Oh, come in.’   
‘Thought you’d never ask.’ Davos moved past him into the kitchen, with the confidence of someone who’d tread the path many times before. ‘I mean, if you are sick of me, just say so. I’ll leave the food and do a runner.’   
There was that laugh again. Stannis followed him into the kitchen. Davos placed the pot on the stove and busied himself with teatowels. If he was a more emotional man, Stannis might have cried of gratitude.   
‘Needs a little heating.’   
His collar was undone a little, Stannis noticed. He could see the tan on his neck, the sort of outdoorsy tint of someone who worked outside.   
‘What are you looking at?’   
God. Stannis blinked.   
‘Why didn’t you run instead?’  
He’d blurted it, to try and cover the fact he was staring.   
‘Run for what?’  
‘For the seat. You’re good at this. Politics. You’re good with people. You’re kind and caring and…’  
‘You care too.’   
Davos turned the heat on the stovetop up. Stannis blinked.   
‘Me?’  
‘Of course you care. The courage of your convictions. Real tenacity, like a fuckin’ bulldog with a chew toy. I knew it the moment we met.’   
‘But I’m not-‘ Stannis felt the warmth grow in his chest at the compliment. Was it a compliment? ‘I’m not good with – talking and –‘   
‘It’ll come in time. Listen, Stannis. Don’t secondguess yourself now. I believe in you. Absolutely. I wouldn’t have come on board if I didn’t. I really admire you. You and your bloody magnificent brain. Today was a tough day. And there’s been some tough days along the way. But we can do it. That’s really… what I came over to say.’   
He paused, shifted on one foot.   
‘I didn’t run because I’m useless. I’m not a frontman. Probably more of a backup dancer. Maybe a roadie.’  
Stannis chuckled.   
‘Sweet Mother of Mary, is that a laugh?’ Davos was grinning now, and Stannis hoped he hadn’t imagined the blush across the other man’s cheeks. ‘Call the local parish, we need to report a miracle.’   
The pot on the stove began to bubble.   
‘You’re very good to me, Davos.’ Stannis murmured.   
There was a silence.   
‘Good enough to pour me a double shot of that whiskey?’   
‘Why not?’  
Heart, Stannis thought to himself, as Davos found the bowls without having to ask. That was what his right hand man had in spades.   
‘Only nine days left, really,’ Davos raised his drink. ‘To a successful home strait.’  
Nine days, Stannis reflected, half warm and half miserable, as they tucked into their meal together.   
Only nine days to figure out how to fall out of love with Davos Seaworth.


End file.
